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It's Fun to Play the Piano ... Please Pass It On!

Thanks GP, it is so nice reading and hearing your satisfaction. Do not worry about unisons, it is notorious how delicate they are, and you and Bill have done very well. These recordings are very enjoyable and better than many piano recordings I've heard.

GP, I have time for one post before I go to the PTG meeting. While unisons are the easiest concept for a novice tuner to understand, any veteran tuner will tell you they are the most difficult to perfect in the end. I hear a couple of "liquid" ones in Il Postino but most are just fine. You are doing well, don't worry. To really get them absolutely pure, you have to listen to each one while it decays through most of the time the string will sound. That takes a lot of time. A 2 hour time frame for tuning your piano, even when it is still pretty good would not be too long to spend.

They are both on mic stands, one at the treble end and the other at the bass end, facing straight down. The treble mic is higher than the bass, as there is more high-energy coming from the treble stings.

I spent last evening re-tuning the piano again, in EBVT III of course. This time I used my IPhone Tunelab. The results are better.... I must say though, it could have been my fault...when I was tuning with the RCT, I caught it on the wrong octave...I don't know how many notes I may have tuned incorrectly. In any case, this time around I was very careful to make sure I was in the right place with the Tunelab.

I was very careful with the unisons, listening as Bill suggested to the tone as it decayed. I was so taken with the sound of the piano after I was done, I just sat there recording song after song, not wanting to get up to clean the unisons after each piece. So, I will put them in order as I played them from the first piece right after I tuned it, Il Postino was No 1, then the rest follow. You can hear by the end, some unisons are out, and it's going flat a bit in the treble, but the overall tuning stayed better this time...(no heavy pieces) LOL, Enjoy!

I chose these particular pieces as they show how EBVT III can sound in modern music, and there is lots of sustain, rather than a lot of fast notes. The jazz music is very enjoyable with this tuning.

If you have a set of headphones, give them a try with these files...sonic heaven.

As for the sound of EBVT III...I am in awe of your work Bill! It's hard to put it into words....all I know is that I am completely taken with it. All of those pieces I recorded so far, I have heard them many many times, but never have they sounded like they do now. Rich, deep, earthy sounds from the bass/mids...clear, sweet treble notes, then combined, it all fits sonically. Bravo!!

Yes, thanks for posting these. And yes, the jazz does sound very good.

A perhaps outlandish thought---I've mentioned before on another forum that EBVT sometimes, on some pieces, reminds me of the piano sounds from some older Hollywood musicals. I had the same, very pleased, sensation when listening to the last (Jazz) recording, here. Do I have specific films in mind? Well, no. Just a general impression. I can very easily imagine Lauren Bacall stepping up to sing beside this piano.

I know that Bill has written about how Well tunings lasted longer than some charts indicate. Does anyone else have a similar impression that Well tunings were more specifically popular in American films (perhaps indicating that they were fairly standard in clubs and homes, too)?

Jake, the mics are under the lid, facing straight down. The treble mic is higher, about 18 inc from the strings than the bass mic, which is about 8 inch above the strings. This what they call a 'close' mic setup. My living room is not the best room for putting the mics away from the piano, plus I like the sound you get from inside the piano, as you mentioned, lot's of piano sounds.

Grandpianoman, my ear is uneducated about tunings, but I have very much enjoyed what you have posted for us to listen to. (I may be in the same situation as the rich lady in an art gallery, who told an art critic, "I don't know much about art, but I know what I like." The critic replied, "Madam, so does a cow.")

Moo!

I'm a little curious about the mikes. Would you mind saying where you got them, and how you chose them? Nice, flat response curve; that is not so easy to find without spending a LOT of money--- out of my league.

Thanks for all of your hard work GP. This is quite enjoyable.Would you happen to have any David Lanz, George Winston, or anything like that to play? I'd like to hear the EBVT with that kind of music sometime.

Music is a universal language that the average person understands on some level, so your instinct kicks in in situations like this, and it's valid.

I did some research on mics on the internet on several recording forums...and I came across a LOT of mics for every kind of home and pro recording situations. Many of the them were outrageously expensive, way beyond what I could afford. The Avenson's were highly praised for their natural sound quality, and the max spl level was good at 145, which is necessary when recording a piano due to the very high spl peaks, similar to a snare drum, but more complex. I was able to choose them because there were several sites that had comparison tests between mics, average folks recording at home etc, and the Avenson won out on the piano by far, a very real and natural sound. The cost of the mics were very reasonable, considering their quality etc. I bought them over the internet from Front End Audio, a very reputable store for all kinds of audio etc.

Byronje3, you're welcome, glad you are enjoying the recordings. I don't recall having any discs that have those artists on them, but let me go through my collection, and get back to you on that.

As promised, here are the remainder of the recordings I did on this 3rd tuning with the EBVT III figures Bill gave me.

As you can hear, as the recordings progress, a few more unisons out of tune, and a bit flat in the treble section. No matter, I am not going for a CD to sell

This has been a great experience, hearing Bill's EBVT III on my piano. It's brought out a beauty and complexity in the piano and the music that I have never heard before. I am glad you are all enjoying it!

**Forgot to include this folder, where I've put most of the EBVT III recordings :)**

Well, euh, I am truly sorry, but I am listening to Rhapsody in blue, sound false to my ears since the beginning.

Not adding anything to music...

The resonance is not even that large. something is non natural.... (apart from the roll) like somebody that work with aleg shorter than the other.

Kamin--I had the same feeling about one leg shorter than the other in this Rhapsody in Blue, but tracked it down to the interpretation of the music rather than the tuning. The interpretation is halting, not fluid. I know you said, "apart from the roll," but I hear a very pristine quality to the tuning.

Grandpianoman--Thanks for all of this. What a blast!!!

Edited by Cinnamonbear (03/11/1003:36 AM)Edit Reason: Had to thank Grandpianoman.

Thanks Cinamonbear , may be yes the rolls, but I really find some chords are unexpected, and don,t relate to the same tonalities that are played a few octaves lower. I was thinking harmony, not the music played, , as by evidence the reproducing systems are not providing much rubato, if any)

To me the tuning is only a neutral support to music, so the pianists can play and express himself, or express what he fell and understand of what the composer had intention of.

The only role of tuning is to put the piano in beauty, raising harmony, resonance, and such.

It may not interfere with the music, it may support it.

So it is music related, but it may have some coherency along the scale, if the rule is too complicated, at some time I hear that as unbalance up to prefer a too compact tuning of an old recording.

Hopefully, the piano, because of iH, have some room to provide harmony in different situations. More than that, Pianomùan discovered that the piano cna be tuned open, it differs alot from the usual way of tuning, and resonance have a grip at the double/12th relation that enlight the whole tone, even when beginging from a somewhat uneven temperament.

SO global harmony is raised, You would find the same with a tempering based on that relation since the start (and stretch then became natural, not "artificial" to the natural harmony of the piano.

Indeed those last records show that you get the grip for that resonance, thats pretty evident when listening (very enjoyable.

Still, when justness is not balanced between treble and bass it does not make really sence musically speaking , to me.

A very interesting experience would be to record the cts value of the tuning. In the treble it get tempered in a more usual way, probably in the bass as well. Or simply to record progression of 17 th, 24 th and 12ths all along the keyboard.

Your tuning is very good !

Edited by Kamin (03/11/1005:23 AM)

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Professional of the profession. Foo Foo specialistI wish to add some kind and sensitive phrase but nothing comes to mind.!

around midnight : medium umbalance between mediums and bass at the beginning of the piece. generally enjoyeable but so-so.

Shindler list : medium imcomfort , some strange chords.

SABRINA : absolutely awful by all aspects (the music also, thats my revenge for having taken some time listening to those... the name does not come to me...)

Well you lost me here ...

The other jazz piece just tone fine without anything hurting.

I am under the impression that the high treble and the basses resonance "save" the tuning from being dull and anesthetic.

Out of AFrica : incoherent , some noice resonances in the bass the tonality is so so. no much harmony despite the plain simple chords..

So it is tonality related.

Really piano tuned in the Marx brothers movies or all those Jazz records where , eventually not tuned from some time, for the last ones, but tuned in a more coherent ET for what I have heard till today. You know, tuners have ears, it did not appears magically at the 21 th century. Many of themr play the piano, they imagine what they want to hear and correct their tuning accordingly. They dont apply a method blindly, just because that is how they have been told.Some even may have "perfect pitch".

MOst of them have been using chords (if no fast beating listening) 10ths and 17 ths to proove the eveness of their work, it is clearly audible in most of the movies from those years. There can be some fluctuations in the RBI intervals, certainly not as straightly progressive as tuners have learned to manage them those days, but not with differences in beat progression that can be heard in the middle of a piece.

Just checking major chords inversions and progressions oblige you to have more progressiveness than there.

But yes, our ears tenb to give us what we want to hear, so as it works in the 2 directions, you may hear a very pleasing piano, and I may hear one which is not so well in tune !I cant count the number of times I thought my tuning was magnificent, just to discover that it was too clear and harsh, for instance, or with too fast beating progression.

It is very difficult to stay honest and aware of what we hear.

Usually, the music helps a lot to bypass all the tuning mistakes or inconsistencies, there is a confort zone, wher the music can take the advantage on that, hopefully, if not pianos would have disappear from the musical scene for a long time now !

Edited by Kamin (03/11/1006:22 AM)

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Professional of the profession. Foo Foo specialistI wish to add some kind and sensitive phrase but nothing comes to mind.!

Now wait a minute… I haven’t read all the posts here but a little red light has been blinking in the back of my mind saying something does not add up.

If Gershwin composed for how tuners tuned at the time, and if those tuners tuned with 4ths and 5ths, then according to Bill the result would have been Reverse Well. So shouldn’t Gershwin’s music be played in the temperament of the period? Shouldn’t it be played in Reverse Well?

Actually there must be plenty of recordings available from that time period that can be analyzed to determine the temperament and stretch and even the inharmonicity of the pianos. Does anyone know if this has been done?

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Jeff DeutschlePart-Time TunerWho taught the first chicken how to peck?

Late 19th Century and early 20th Century tuners tuned in Victorian style Well Temperament and Quasi ET. Reverse Well only came into existence as a result of the Braide-White book.

Kamin, there is no such thing as "perfect pitch". What you are calling "unbalanced" harmony is actually quite well balanced according to the rules of Well Temperament. What is there is deliberate and intended. You have also given the "neutral palette" argument. If the tuning has no distinctions in harmony, the pianist can create the intended color. Just how does a pianist do that? How can a pianist change tonality according to key signature by playing louder and faster or softer and slower?

One of the limitations about using a player piano (which we all discussed long before I ever went to GP's to tune his piano) is that the player system cannot "hear" the tuning. It will play the way the pianist recorded the piece regardless of how the piano is tuned. When a live pianist performs with a Well Temperament or mild Meantone (as in the case of Peter Serkin), the tone colors of the temperament cause the pianist to shape the music in a far more sensitive way than if the piano is tuned in ET.

I hope Patrick of Finland will show us some examples of this. He is perhaps the one contributor on here who could do it best. Some months ago, I gave the example of the Schubert Impromptu #4 which has within it, as written, the potential for a great variety of expression. The first time I ever heard that piece, it was played on a piano that I tuned in the 1/7 Comma Meantone. The performance was stunning and breathtaking. No pianist can possibly do what I heard at that time in ET. They don't even try. They can't express what is really written, so they just play the notes and the wide variety of moods in the piece are not heard.

I continually see here by the ET only people the argument for taking away all expression that there is available from the way a piano may be tuned. Let's put all music on Prozac (a tranquilizing medication), so to speak. Let's take away all the expression that a piano can have built into it by the way it is tuned so that the pianist will have none to work with. I won't do that. I know what pianists like and I will continue to provide all of the colors of the palette for them to use. ET limits the pianist to only shades of gray, no strong contrasts, the ability to create any expression severely compromised.

I continually see here by the ET only people the argument for taking away all expression that there is available from the way a piano may be tuned. Let's put all music on Prozac (a tranquilizing medication), so to speak. Let's take away all the expression that a piano can have built into it by the way it is tuned so that the pianist will have none to work with. I won't do that. I know what pianists like and I will continue to provide all of the colors of the palette for them to use. ET limits the pianist to only shades of gray, no strong contrasts, the ability to create any expression severely compromised.

Ridiculous! The “ET only people” merely express what they prefer. You continue to insult people that have a different preference than you. It reminds me very much of the story of the Emperor’s New Clothes.

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Jeff DeutschlePart-Time TunerWho taught the first chicken how to peck?

But this could become a long, long list. (And Lauren Bacall was a bad choice for imagining a singer beside an EBVT piano--I'd forgotten that her singing voice wasn't great. I'd like to hear Billie Holiday beside a piano with this tuning. Couldn't quickly find a Holiday-Wilson recording without other instruments drowning out the piano, however.)

I do hear something different in the 1941 Wilson. He might be a good person to check the recordings of, since he was playing from the '30s up until his death. Might provide a snapshot history of jazz piano tuning, at least.

It is good that these are available. Some just sound like poor octaves, maybe deliberately. It seemed to me that the piano in the Superbowl Sonata commercial was deliberately mistuned. If someone is going to declare that pianos were tuned a certain way, it should be based on an objective study of the information that is available. I am sure old recordings can be analyzed. Maybe a study has been done.

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Jeff DeutschlePart-Time TunerWho taught the first chicken how to peck?

It occurred to me, too, that the Wilson piano, the first piece, might just have unusual or narrow octaves.

I'm trying to imagine the steps for a formal study of the subject. Finding older recordings of say Waller and Johnson and early Wilson might be a starting point, since there are many recordings and thus probably some slow pieces here and there. Would a piano have to be tuned to match a recording to really determine the tuning, or could you just capture as many notes as possible here and there, find their exact pitch with software, and then determine the tuning?

Jeff, do you know when you will complete this study? (Could we get that by this weekend...?)

Even at best, old recordings may vary in speed enough to distort the tuning. If you want to look into them, I suggest listening to someone who was known to have super-accurate perfect pitch, like Josef Hoffman. However, I suspect some of those recordings were "corrected" to A-440, which he did not use. (I wonder if the change led do his drinking problems.)

Thanks for sending those . That one sound like a good ET (or quasi"ET" as there may be some slight differences, for some notes I have seen that often and it is not noticed when music is played.) The particular sound and a tuning very nicely open yet, I tried to find a reason why (may be old tuners knew better how to tune than us, there may be more piano factories in those times, and and many where also near from the sources, coming from Germany or whatever European country, while now the musical taste is somewhat polluted since the young age, by TV show and lift music ! )

There is particular clarity of tone despite a "just enough stretch" and a pure medium (not really widely open but the tone does not ask for it) . in the treble that is what gives that particular acidity, as the piano does not ask for mot of stretch there (In RCT, I recall that the concert Pleyel had a "negative iH" in the treble, I never was able too understand what it means but it was clearly audible when one had to tune in that region.

I begin to believe that it was mostly due to the better quality of the piano wire from those times, purer metal, less iH. The tone wanted was also less powerful than, now, hence, again, less iH.

But the string is at the origin of piano tone, the soundboard come just after.

A freind have a "collection" of Steinway's and Bechsteins from 1900 to 1960 , it is very interesting how the evolving of tone can be heard (most have their original strings) . The tone was very rich and little by little it begin to get more e"pure" with less partials and more power (less "barrel tone and less "defects" too).

But simply tuning in standard ET one of those pianos give that kind of tone (a little restrained of course as the wire age and get hard, but the basis of the spectra remains, I believe)The recording method also add some texture of course.

It may be not too difficult to test a little the tunings, but better have records than videos, so the file can be used in a spectra analyze software, and checked, with Tunelab or similar.

I am changing the stringing on a 1930 Pleyel, in Roslau wire I have way more iH than originally 0.96 while it was 0.56, that is on that piano that the 12th coming from A440 need 5Hz to be in tuner "just"

To find a similar open tone I'll have to use softer wire AND to lessen the thickness a lot the tension then comes from 750 to 550N in the mediums. If not , I have a strong but unpleasing tone, it loose most of its light and quality, sound "pinched".

Edited by Kamin (03/11/1002:16 PM)

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Professional of the profession. Foo Foo specialistI wish to add some kind and sensitive phrase but nothing comes to mind.!

In Germany, France and Italy a A fork is used , then the sequence is between E and E or F and F, or E-4 (I did not heard of a A-A sequence since Chas) . Then if some 5ths may be less tempered they will be A E ,B F# , c# G# , etc...I giess it is easier to be tempted to tune a "reverse well when beginning with a C fork, but , I guess it may have happen often because of a highly in harmonic tone that push the tuner to enlarge the first octave more than necessary (that plus the security for drift). I also noticed that many verticals have a somehow acid tone, this is also the sign of more iH. When measuring with tunelab, a plucked string will have more iH than a played one, and a hard hammer note will have more iH than a soft hammer one. The apprentice tuners in factory learn first to chip (plucking the strings) , they work with full ih. That learn to open the octaves to the most, it is a good school.

Sorry I derivate completely from the topic.

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Professional of the profession. Foo Foo specialistI wish to add some kind and sensitive phrase but nothing comes to mind.!

I'm trying to imagine the steps for a formal study of the subject. Finding older recordings of say Waller and Johnson and early Wilson might be a starting point, since there are many recordings and thus probably some slow pieces here and there. Would a piano have to be tuned to match a recording to really determine the tuning, or could you just capture as many notes as possible here and there, find their exact pitch with software, and then determine the tuning?

I believe I could do that by listening plus using an EDT, the ability to stop and play back a certain note may suffice.An editing software, as Audacity is enough to do that.Ears when in analytic mode, can catch many things, but yest it have to be backed up (or instance the C' being higher than the rest in the last link, this can be seen in Tunelab, (or whatever EDT software) and measured in cts - with a small precision but enough to have an idea of the level of deviation. the display have to be regulated to stop , and the offset noted.

I just tried on the Marx bros (with orchestra, not easy) . I traced to a lot of stretch beginning at C7 th B-C too large sensation.- it may be around 1 cts ors so, not much) B3 is a tad low, B3-C4 then is a tad large, but B4C5 is normal - pitch seem to be 438 (does not mena much in fact)

I would need MP3 or wav files to do that more precisely.

It may, however, take some time ...

Edited by Kamin (03/11/1003:35 PM)

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Professional of the profession. Foo Foo specialistI wish to add some kind and sensitive phrase but nothing comes to mind.!